NATWEST THREE CONFESS TO US COURT

'NatWest Three' face jail for Enron fraud says The Daily Telegraph reporting the probable result of a plea bargaining effort by their lawyers which might see them jailed for thirty seven months instead of a possible thirty five years after they agreed to admit to one count of fraud instead of four.
The DT then explains out that the three men were extradited to the USA "amid much public protest"......what the paper fails to point out was that the "public protest" was mainly cheerled by the DT itself. Over a period of several months we were drip fed a skilful PR campaign of sob stories and family photo ops portraying the three as innocent victims of an American witch hunt.
This didn't cut much ice with many of us who realised that a lot of UK suits (some of them well known to the media on this side of the Atlantic) who sailed a little close to the financial edge were terrified that, instead of the ponderous investigation and genteel slap on the wrist usually given to "respectable"fraudsters by British courts, they would face an American judicial regime which acts swiftly and hands out draconian prison sentences and massive fines...............

Swimmers throw abuse at injured servicemen in pool

How can they sink so low? "Servicemen from Headley Court rehabilitation centre near Leatherhead were about to begin their weekly swim at Leatherhead Leisure Centre, which helps with their therapy, when they were verbally abused by a group of regular swimmers" reported the Leatherhead Advertiser on November 21st.

Apparently a number of regulars objected to them using a roped off area of the pool claiming that they paid to use it and should have prority. The leader of the Headley Court party withdrew the group from the pool to avoid further confrontation. It would have been gratifying to hear that the Leisure Centre staff had told the men to get back in and banned the complainers from using the Centre again but this is England 2007 - the reaction was supine and clearly the complainers felt vindicated.............if ever there was a justification for a tabloid "name and shame" this must be it.......

BBC and Gun Crime - an "independent view"

This BBC item http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6964403.stm reports reaction to the Brown governments plans to “crack down” on gun crime with an amnesty, drop off zones etc. It then refers to “an independent charity”

“Meanwhile, an independent charity has suggested that Home Office figures show the numbers of children killed in recent years are falling. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies found 63 children aged from one to 15 were killed in England and Wales in 1995, compared with 31 in 2005/06.
The director of the centre, Richard Garside, said the figures differed from the common perception, but it was too soon to say whether the recent spate of child killings would reverse the downward trend. He said the most significant rise in killings was among the 16 to 49 age group, up from 429 in 1995 to 513 in 2005/06.”

Now at first glance this appears to be a slight dash of cold water on the Tory reaction and the words “independent” and “charity” give the impression of detachment and neutrality but a quick google of Richard Garside produced this nugget http://pommygranate.blogspot.com/2007/05/fisking-richard-garside.html

Then have a look at The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies website and its publications http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/ccjs/pubs.html
...are there any little bells ringing?

The Media and the McCanns

I feel sorry for the McCann family and anger for whoever has inflicted this on them but have no patience with the media induced frenzy or the sick opportunism of celebrities who have jumped onto this bandwagon to gain some PR points.
The trouble is that around this Portuguese resort there are scores of UK hacks milling about with nothing to do. Now the average intelligence level of journalists is more or less on a par with an earwig so they have to post whatever comes into their "mind" to keep the editors happy and justify their expenses. Hence the speculation about Robert Murat (looks suspicious so must be guilty) and, even better, a Russian IT expert. Add the usual ingredient of local police (foreign so must be incompetent), photogenic middle class family, a slow news week or two and you have the recipe for a perfect media frenzy.
Above them all you have the satisfying spectre of the pedophile stranger - such an attractive demon which conveniently helps us to ignore the fact that the vast majority of incidents of child abuse are perpetrated by family or friends of family.
Simon Jenkins has been a lone voice of reason here http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2082505,00.html but in general the media have been at their worst - they don't do fairness or reason very well at all but they love to do "I feel your pain"......

GUY BURGESS R.I.P.

Much as I believe that MacMillan was greatly overrated as PM I must raise a glass to him for fooling that reptile Guy Burgess into thinking he would be arrested if he returned to the UK (when in actual fact there might not have been enough evidence to convict him). The upshot was that Burgess remained in Moscow – which he came to hate (excellent!) – and consumed even more alcohol, leading to his death in 1963. Clearly if he had returned he would have been lauded by the left, become part of the Sixties scene and ended up as Sir Guy with his own TV show and a column in the Grauniad…… so hat tip to The DT……

PLANTING SCARVES IN THE TELEGRAPH?

Earlier this week a strange letter from Ted Shorter of Tonbridge about how men should wear a scarf appeared in the Daily Telegraph............next day, hey presto!, appeared this deeply researched article.............an admittedly rather brief search of 192.com did not find a Ted Shorter, or even an E. Shorter in the Tonbridge phone book or the electoral rolls...........but surely this rather fogeyish letter was not planted by DT staff............no, they would never do that....would they?

OUR FEARLESS AND BALANCED BBC...

There were a few eyebrows raised over the recent BBC Bradford "Cripple" story when the Beeb made much of comments made by a "Tory activist" in a private e mail. This was partly, I suppose because of the weight given to it both on the website and on Newsnight and also the heavy emphasis on the fact that it was from a "Tory".
Now being a fair minded chap I just wanted to compare and contrast how the BBC treated the "Donnygate" affair where the police uncovered large scale corruption involving the Labour controlled Doncaster City Council, described even by The Guardian as the biggest local authority corruption scandal since the 1970s....so see here how the case was finally reported by our beloved and unbiased beeboids.............clearly the Guardian was mistaken, the Councillors had no party affiliation......unlike the wicked Lady Porter at Westminster...

KEN OFF THE HOOK AGAIN?

Very strange that so far there has been little media comment about the debate a few days ago between Ken Livingston and Daniel Pipes. There was nothing on the BBC website which is strange because the Beeb has always relentlessly provided Ken with clouds of the oxygen of publicity..............could it possibly be that they were slightly embarrassed about his seconder and some of Ken's comments.....even the Today Team would never go so far in their anti Americanism to blame the Cold War completely on the USA, would they?
Have a look at what Daniel Pipes says himself ......will be fascinating to see the whole thing....